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'Deborah Norville Tonight' for Nov. 29

Read the transcript to the 9 p.m. ET show

Guest: Fred Castagna, Gary Gaul, Tom Bradby, Pamela Redmond Satran, Strawberry Saroyan

ANNOUNCER:  DEBORAH NORVILLE TONIGHT.

DEBORAH NORVILLE, HOST:  Life or death?  Jurors in the Scott Peterson trial now face perhaps the most excruciating decision of their lives, whether to condemn this man to death.  Tonight: What impact will Laci Peterson‘s loved ones have on their decision?  Plus: Another man sits on death row for the murder of his wife and unborn child.  You‘ll meet the jury foreman who voted for the ultimate sentence.

Princess Diana like we‘ve never seen or heard before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  There‘s just nobody to physically scream at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  Her romance with Prince Charles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  It was odd.  Very odd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  And the other woman.  Tonight, new tapes of Diana‘s shattered fairy-tale romance.

Plus: Angelina Jolie on the most important role of her life.  The Oscar-winning actress makes a plea for the victims of what many are calling the world‘s worst humanitarian crisis.  And Julia‘s twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus.  But we‘ve just got to ask, What‘s in a name?

ANNOUNCER:  From studio 3K in Rockefeller Center, Deborah Norville.

NORVILLE:  And good evening.  Tomorrow, the same jury that convicted Scott Peterson of murder reconvenes for the start of the penalty phase of the trial, where the jury will decide if Peterson should be executed.  Today the California supreme court denied a petition from Peterson‘s attorneys to appoint a new jury to decide if Peterson should be put to death or serve a life term.  Experts say many of the jurors may have already made up their minds about what punishment Scott Peterson deserves.

Tonight, we begin with the story of a husband convicted of killing his young and very pregnant wife, a woman on whom he had taken out a new insurance policy.  But it‘s not Scott Peterson.  In 2001, Todd Garton was convicted of murdering his young eight-months-pregnant wife.  Like Peterson, he‘d taken out a new insurance policy.  Like Peterson, he‘d been having an affair.  But one big difference: Garton hired a hitman who actually pulled the trigger.  And for the planning and scheming for that death, Garton got the death penalty.  He now sits on death row.  And if the Garton jury sentenced him to death, might Scott Peterson get the same fate?

Joining me now is the jury foreman from the Garton trial, Fred Castagna.  It took his jury only 70 minutes to reach that death penalty verdict.  Also joining us is Gregory Gaul.  He‘s the senior deputy district attorney in Shasta County, California.  That‘s where the trial took place.  Gentlemen, thanks a lot for being with us.

Fred, I want to start with you first.  Which is harder, deciding the guilt of a man or the punishment?

FRED CASTAGNA, FORMER MURDER TRIAL JURY FOREMAN:  I think deciding the guilt would be harder by quite a bit.  The punishment kind of follows.

NORVILLE:  And so as you‘re deciding—because we‘re trying to get a sense of what‘s going on in the minds of the people in the Peterson trial.  As you‘re deciding the guilt, is it in the back of your mind what that penalty ought to be, as you‘re deciding he‘s guilty or innocent?

CASTAGNA:  It‘s definitely in the back of your mind, but you try not to let it influence the decision that you‘re trying to make, which is guilt and innocence right at that point.

NORVILLE:  It took you all about six hours, I understand from the court records, to decide the guilt of Todd Garton, but it only took 70 minutes to decide what the penalty should be.  Is it really that easy to send a man to death?

CASTAGNA:  No, I certainly wouldn‘t say it was easy.  But keeping in mind that the trial took over five months and there was a lot of evidence, and it was—it just piled up against the man, to the point where we knew he was pretty evil by the time we went into the penalty phase.

NORVILLE:  And Gregory Gaul, I‘m sure that‘s one of the reasons that Mark Geragos and his team tried unsuccessfully to get the California supreme court to let another jury sit in judgment of what the penalty should be.  It‘s astonishing for those of us just hearing about this case, the similarities between the Scott Peterson case and the case that you tried against Todd Garton, but a big difference.  You had someone else who was the triggerman, who went into the home where this lady was, pulled the trigger.  She died by a number of gunshot wounds.  What other significances do you see between the Peterson trial and the Todd Garton trial?

GREGORY GAUL, SENIOR DEPUTY DA, SHASTA COUNTY, CA:  Well, in the Todd Garton trial, we had a lot of direct evidence in the form of testimony from co-conspirators.  There was a lot of circumstantial evidence, too, which is the—what you have in the Peterson case.  But sometimes circumstantial evidence can be even stronger than direct evidence.

NORVILLE:  It‘s a largely circumstantial case against Scott Peterson.  From where you sit, as a prosecutor, is it enough of a circumstantial case to send him to the death chair?

GAUL:  Well, I can‘t really comment on the Peterson case specifically, but what a jury‘s going to be looking for, I think, is whether—obviously, they‘ve convicted him, so they‘ve found that they‘ve proven the case.  Now they‘re going to be looking at the circumstances in aggravation versus the circumstances in mitigation and try to determine and agree upon whether or not this is the type of individual that deserves death, as compared to other individuals who are also charged with murder.

NORVILLE:  And Mr. Castagna, I guess that‘s one of the things that you all had to deal with in your case as you were sitting in judgment of Todd Garton.  Was there anything redeemable about this man that you already had decided was guilty in planning the murder of his wife?  What did the jury need to hear in order to spare his life?

CASTAGNA:  Well, in our case, we went through just about every scenario we could come up with to try to find some, as you say, redeemable attributes to the man, but the number of lives that he ruined and left in his wake was just—the evidence was insurmountable, really.

NORVILLE:  So when those family members come and sit in the witness box and talk about the baby that was never born, the birthday parties they‘ll never share, that‘s really what tugs at the heartstrings as you sit there?

CASTAGNA:  Those things tug at the heartstrings, but I have to say that in my case, it was the evidence that was presented in the trial.  It was—the man was evil, and Greg Gaul here proved it to us.  That was pretty much what decided it for me.

NORVILLE:  And Greg, you know what‘s amazing is, as much media coverage as there‘s been about the Scott Peterson case—and Lord knows, you could fill up probably a couple of phone-book-sized volumes about all the reporting on this—very little have we been able to find, either in terms of television reports or newspaper articles, about the Todd Garton case, even though there‘s so many similarities.  Why did the Peterson case catch the media‘s fancy and the one you prosecuted not?

GAUL:  Well, I think in the Peterson case, the reason it probably got a lot of media attention was because, initially, she was a missing person, and there was a lot of focus on the search.  It was the time of year.  It was around Christmastime.  And that just kind of snowballed into once, you know, someone was arrested and there was a focus on an investigation, I think the media really focused on it.  And it drew a lot of attention and it just kind of grew from there.  And our case had a lot of attention locally, but not nationally or even statewide.

NORVILLE:  Is it easier to do your job when you don‘t have the entire national press corps breathing down your neck as you do it?

GAUL:  Well, sure.  I‘ve never had the entire press corps.  I mean, I can imagine it‘s a lot of stress going in and out of court.  And you know, you don‘t want to be distracting witnesses and other people from doing—you know, coming in and testifying...

NORVILLE:  Yes.

GAUL:  ... and not being intimidated by the cameras.  So sure, it makes it a lot easier.  But I don‘t think either way that it would impact the ultimate outcome of a case.  I think a case can go forward fine with a lot of attention.

NORVILLE:  You know, Fred, you said that you all sat there for five months.  You heard evidence in this case before it was finally given to you to decide whether guilty or innocent.  The Peterson jury sat there for six months, hearing an awful lot of evidence, went through the same process you did, returned a verdict in pretty much the same amount of time.  Do you expect that they‘re going to be pretty quick to pull the trigger and decide what their verdict will be, as far as penalty?

CASTAGNA:  Yes, it‘s really hard to say.  I wouldn‘t want to

speculate.  You know, we haven‘t heard anything about how they felt during

the guilt phase.  And as I said, that‘s pretty much what drove our decision

·         my decision, anyway.

NORVILLE:  Yes.  Do you ever get over voting...

CASTAGNA:  So without knowing that...

NORVILLE:  Sorry.  Do you ever get over voting to send someone to death?

CASTAGNA:  I think about it, but I really feel so confident that we did the right thing that I sleep at night.

ANNOUNCER:  All right.  Well, we‘re glad to hear that.  Fred Castagna, thanks for being with us.  Greg Gaul, thank you, as well.

ANNOUNCER:  Still to come, never before seen video from behind palace walls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER:  Princess Diana speaks the truth about her fairy-tale life when DEBORAH NORVILLE TONIGHT returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORVILLE:  On now to a look at Princess Diana as you‘ve never seen her before.  NBC News has obtained revealing new videotapes of Diana recorded by her voice coach between September of 1992 and December of 1993 at Kensington Palace.  In these tapes, Diana claims that her bodyguard was murdered for having an affair with her.  The princess also reveals that she and Prince Charles had sex only once every three weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  There was never a requirement for it, from his case.  Sort of a once every three weeks look about it, and I kept thinking—and then I followed a pattern.  He used to see his lady once every three weeks before we got married.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  NBC obtained these tapes from Diana‘s voice coach, Peter Settelen (ph), after he had a long legal battle with the royal family, which wanted those tapes destroyed.  Will the public‘s fascination with Princess Diana ever be satisfied?  Joining me now to take a closer look and listen to these new tapes is Tom Bradby.  He‘s the United Kingdom editor for the British television network ITN.  Thank you for coming in.

Why were these tapes made, in the first place?

TOM BRADBY, ITN TELEVISION NETWORK:  Well, I think they were made to try and make her feel better about herself.  It was a very private thing.  He was trying to encourage her.  He was trying to build up her self-esteem.  And obviously, as part of that, he got her to talk about her life.  I mean, I sometimes wondered, listening to them, just exactly why he did make them.  But that‘s just my personal view.  The basic view was he was trying to build up her self-confidence.

NORVILLE:  But was she so naive that didn‘t, in the back of her mind, think, If I talk intimately on this home videocamera, this might end up in the public area at some point in the future?

BRADBY:  I don‘t think she did think that because I think what you‘ve got to bear in mind is that the boundaries, if you like, on what has been put in the public domain as regards to the royal family have been expanded and expanded at such a rate since her divorce, and I really don‘t think it would have occurred to her that these ever would have been made public.

NORVILLE:  And in the process of talking on camera, the idea was that she would feel comfortable being in public, being on TV, because she wanted to go out and sort of change her own public image.  She‘d had a lot of bad press .

BRADBY:  Well, that was the idea, but I think it‘s also worth bearing in mind that she was desperately lonely.  She wanted to have someone to talk to.  I think at that point in her life, anyone who was a kind of sympathetic and reasonably nice figure to have around, she was going to talk.  And she did.

NORVILLE:  Which is what Peter Settelen was.  And it was almost like put a coin in the machine and out came all this stuff, first of all, how she and the Prince of Wales met.  And this is the way she described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  And I said, You must be so lonely.  And I said, It‘s pathetic, watching you walking up the aisle at St. Paul‘s with Lord Mountbatten‘s coffin in front.  I said, you know, It‘s ghastly.  You need someone beside you.  Ugh!  Wrong word!  Whereupon he leapt upon me and started kissing me and everything.  And I thought, Oh!  You know, this isn‘t what people do!  And he was all over me for the rest of the evening, followed me around, everything, a puppy.  And yes, I was flattered, but I was very puzzled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  It‘s almost like a little old lady sharing gossip as she talks about—at the prince—at the Lord Mountbatten‘s funeral, the Prince of Wales was all over her like a wet puppy.

BRADBY:  Well, as I was listening to that, I just couldn‘t help smiling, really, because you think this is the strangest relationship the world‘s ever seen!  I mean, it is bizarre.  Yes, the way she talks about it is odd.  What can you say?  I mean, it‘s such a strange courtship.  It was strange from the word go.

NORVILLE:  And if it was strange from the word go, it didn‘t get much better because, as the princess described it, she 19, he was, what, in his early 30s, he still left a lot to be desired in the boyfriend department.  Here‘s another clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  He wasn‘t consistent with his courting abilities.  He‘d ring me up every day for a week, and then he wouldn‘t speak to me for three weeks.  Very odd.  And I accepted that.  I thought, Fine, well, he knows where I am if he wants me.  And then the thrill when he used to ring up was so immense and intense.  Drive the other three girls in my flat crazy.  But no, it was all—it was odd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  It was odd, the way she described the courtship.

BRADBY:  Certainly was odd.  But I think you‘ve got to bear in mind that, to some extent, this wasn‘t a conventional marriage, as we all understand marriage to be.  It was an arranged marriage, to some degree.  Which is not to say that Charles cared absolutely nothing for her.  But certainly, you know, he needed a wife.  He needed someone young who didn‘t, frankly, have a record.  Lots of people said, Look, she‘s the one, go for her, and he did.  I don‘t think there was a lot of love in the early stages.

NORVILLE:  And yet she, in other tapes that we‘ve heard that were recorded for Andrew Morton‘s book, talked a great deal about how it was stars and hearts and flowers, as far as she was concerned.  She really fell hard for this guy.

BRADBY:  Oh, I think she did.  I mean, I think the whole—the essence of the Diana story is the complete mismatch, in terms of approach to the marriage.  I mean, if nothing else about marriage—I don‘t want to sound like a psychologist here—you‘ve got to go into it wanting the same thing.  They just—I mean, they couldn‘t have been further apart—in age, they didn‘t have anything in common.  He thought he was going to get one thing, she thought she was going to get something different, and that‘s why it ended up breaking up so bitterly.

NORVILLE:  How does this go over with the British people?   Here in America, people just seem to not be able to get enough of Princess Diana.  Is it the same over there?

BRADBY:  Not really.  I think—I mean, people will be curious about this.  They‘re—you know, they‘re extraordinary tapes, whatever you make of them, and people will be curious to see.  But I think, also, you‘re reaching a kind of saturation point with the Diana industry, I would call it, where we‘ve had this, we‘ve had that, you know, endless details about her intimate life, which she certainly wouldn‘t have wanted to be made public.

We‘ve got the two sons we see a lot of, you maybe don‘t see so much of here.  And therefore, people are kind of a bit sick of this, to be honest.

NORVILLE:  And you want to talk about intimate details, I almost feel sort of, you know, incorrect in doing this, but this man made these tapes.  He sold them.  He put them out in the public domain.  She spoke very, very specifically about the most intimate part of their marriage relationship.  Here‘s Princess Diana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  There‘s virtually no sexual relations between you and Charles?

PRINCESS DIANA:  Well, there was.

(CROSSTALK)

PRINCESS DIANA:  There was.  There was.  But it was odd.  Very odd.  But there was—it was there, and then it fizzled out about seven years ago.  Six years ago?  Well, seven was Harry.  It‘s eight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  How do you know it was odd?

PRINCESS DIANA:  Instinct told me.  It was just so odd.  I just—I don‘t know.  There was never a requirement for it, from his case.  Sort of a once every three weeks look about it, and I kept thinking—and then I followed a pattern.  He used to see his lady once every three weeks before we got married.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  “See his lady once every three weeks,” referring to...

BRADBY:  Camilla.

NORVILLE:  ... Camilla Parker Bowles.  That never ended.

BRADBY:  No.  Well, I mean, for a period, it went (UNINTELLIGIBLE) believed.  But I mean, for a period, I think it—it was postponed, if you like.  But he did go back to her, and everyone has pretty much admitted that.  I did find it weird listening to those tapes.  I mean, why was he asking those questions?  If he was trying to build her self-esteem and public speaking, why on earth was he asking about her husband—you know, her sex life for?  I don‘t know.

NORVILLE:  And why was she answering the questions?  I mean, you know, it‘s—they say that she became paranoid, and I can certainly understand that, if everything you ever do is being recorded for potential sale later on.  But why was she not showing him the door?

BRADBY:  She talked quite a lot about her sex life with her husband, to be honest.  I‘ve spoken, you know, to many people over the years that I‘ve been covering this, you know, and I‘ve heard this comment and that comment about things that she said off the cuff.  I think she—you know, she felt terrible about her marriage breaking up.  She wanted to talk to other people.  She was a woman of, to be honest, relatively limited experience, at that point, in terms of the broader life.  And she wanted to talk to other people, I think, and, you know, say, Look, this has happened to me, it was strange.

NORVILLE:  And you mentioned her sons, William and Harry.  They‘re both adults now.  I wonder what the impact of yet again more intimate details about their mother‘s troubled life came into the public domain would be.

BRADBY:  Well, they hate it, and they get really, really upset by it.  And there‘s a number—I mean, William is probably a bit better able to deal with it now.  He‘s older.  You know, he‘s got his own life.  He‘s had a very steady girlfriend for two years.  Harry‘s a lot younger, more vulnerable.  This really, really gets to him, I can tell you.  You know, I‘ve spoken to him quite a lot this year on a number of occasions.  You know, I had lunch and dinner with him not very long ago.  And he really gets upset by this.  He gets really, really wound up by it.

But the central message they both take from it is, We‘re commodities.  There is nothing that someone won‘t sell about us, if they‘ll make some money out of it.  That is the conclusion they reach.  And it‘s a pretty depressing conclusion for someone of their age, at their stage in life to reach.

NORVILLE:  And yet, incredibly, Diana had a sense of her own destiny.  As maybe poorly executed as this was, she had a very clear sense that there was something bigger for her.  And this is the way she articulated that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS DIANA:  I knew that something profound was coming my way, and I was just treading water, waiting for it.  I didn‘t know what it was.  I didn‘t know where it was.  I didn‘t know if it was coming next year or next month.  But I knew I was different from my friends in where I was going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  If she had a sense of her own destiny, do her sons, particularly Harry, with whom you‘ve had a great deal of contact, have a sense that her destiny, her legacy, has been fulfilled and honored?

BRADBY:  It‘s an interesting question.  I think they‘re struggling with that at the moment.  I mean, I made a documentary with Harry earlier this year in Africa, where he was...

NORVILLE:  Right.

BRADBY:  ... sort of going on with his mother‘s work on AIDS victims.  And he particularly wanted to do that and said many, many times to me privately, as well as publicly on camera, Look, this is really what I want to do because I feel her reputation is being trashed and I want to do something to concentrate on all the good things that she did.

But in terms of her own sense of destiny, I think that‘s an interesting and complicated question because they‘re still struggling with that.  And something like this, you know, the big question for them, how much do they want to be global superstars like their mother?  Now, obviously, there‘s some fantastic things about that.  She did some great things.  But look at what we‘re seeing now, her intimate details being, you know, sold for money, basically.  They hate that and it upsets them, and they—it makes them wonder about themselves.  Do they really...

NORVILLE:  If they had a choice, do you think they‘d just go find a farm somewhere and live the quiet life?

BRADBY:  Yes.  Yes.  They both would.  Yes.

NORVILLE:  Sad.  That will never be possible for either one of them.

BRADBY:  That‘s never going to be possible.  And what makes their predicament kind of interesting is that even if they said now, I want to go and live in an igloo in Iceland, the British tabloid press would be camped outside the igloo 10 years later, saying...

NORVILLE:  They‘d find out that there was an Icelandic tabloid press all over them...

BRADBY:  Yes.  Yes.

NORVILLE:  ... with their cameras

BRADBY:  William catches a fish today!  You know, that‘s what it‘s like.

NORVILLE:  OK.

BRADBY:  So it‘s...

NORVILLE:  Well, heavy wears the crown or the future crown, I guess it is.  Tom Bradby, thank you very much.  It‘s nice to have your insights.  We appreciate it.

And you can see the entire NBC special, “DIANA REVEALED,” on your local NBC station.  That is tonight at 10:00 Eastern.  We‘ll be right back.

ANNOUNCER:  Up next, the trip abroad that inspired a worldwide crusade, Angelina Jolie sheds light on one of the world‘s worst human crises when DEBORAH NORVILLE TONIGHT returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNY GLUCK, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS:  For many, many months, for the bulk of the time since they‘ve been displaced, they have not received sufficient food.  They‘re living in camps with inadequate water.  And they‘re still facing violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  That was a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders on the crisis in Sudan which has left nearly two million people homeless, more than 70,000 dead.  The United Nations calls it the world‘s worst humanitarian crisis.  And to make matters worse, today Sudan asked the heads of two British agencies that do aid in that country, Save the Children and Oxfam, to leave the country, accusing them of interfering in domestic affairs.

My next guest has seen firsthand the tragedy in Sudan, having traveled to the region of Darfur twice this year.  That‘s where most of the refugees are.  Actress Angelina Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  She has traveled to 20 countries on U.N. missions, including Kenya, Kosovo, Namibia, Thailand, as well as Sudan.  She is also one of Hollywood‘s biggest stars, winning an Academy Award for her performance in the movie “Girl Interrupted,” and she‘s now starring in the new movie “Alexander,” in which she plays Alexander‘s mother, Olympia.

But tonight she‘s here to talk about more important matters than the world of film, the situation in Sudan, which she calls the worst situation she‘s ever seen.  It‘s a pleasure to have you.  Thanks for joining us tonight.

ANGELINA JOLIE, ACTRESS:  Thanks for having me.

NORVILLE:  I want to ask you about the news flash of today, that the heads of these two agencies, Save the Children and Oxfam, were asked to leave by the Sudanese government.  What does that tell you about their desire to truly do anything about the situation there?

JOLIE:  Oh, it‘s terrifying.  I mean, it‘s—the whole—the whole situation is just so horrible and so complicated.  And these—you know, every NGO that is there is so needed and their work is truly life-saving.  And to possibly lose them would, in fact, put many more lives in danger. 

They‘re so necessary on the ground.

NORVILLE:  Now, what the Sudanese people will say is, we‘re just asking the heads to leave.  We haven‘t asked the organization to leave, but isn‘t it one and the same?  

JOLIE:  I think it is, yes, my personal view, absolutely. 

I know that I spoke with some people in the U.N. today and I know there are meetings from in the ground to New York to Geneva and everybody is working very hard to make sure that they don‘t have to leave.  I think, you know, what the repercussions would be would be so horrible, so...

NORVILLE:  You‘ve been there twice just this year.  Most recently was in October and you were actually in Darfur.  Tell me what you saw when you were there. 

JOLIE:  The thing that was the most striking was the security, that everywhere you go, there is not one single place that is 100 percent secure, not one single place.  And when I was even sitting up and speaking with the U.N. and the NGO in the middle of the night, we were on a roof.  We had candles and we were trying to talk over what was going on in the day, you could hear singing from the mosques and you could hear gunfire.

And everybody had—there was a curfew everybody was watching and checking.  There‘s nothing that‘s calm.  And this was probably the safest place.  There‘s no area you can go.  And you meet with children who have no food, no clothes.  Their clothes are falling off their bodies. They can‘t go to the nearby medical—you know, to get supplies because the janjaweed have based themselves in that medical area.

They have no clean water because the janjaweed are using the pipes from their wells as a flagpole.  And in certain pockets there, MSF is able to be there, a lot of aid workers are able to be present.  In some areas, there‘s absolutely nothing. 

NORVILLE:  And you‘ve said that, in those areas where you, let‘s say, the aid workers have come in and they have actually built a school or built a medical facility, when they move to the next place where they‘re doing their good works, it‘s like a magnet for the janjaweed to go in and destroy what they have just made. 

JOLIE:  Yes. 

And I don‘t know if they have been actually able to build or do much. 

But I know that any aid that‘s being brought in—this is the big thing.  None of us have the answer for this situation.  The thing that‘s very, very clear is, so many wonderful people have come in to give aid, to bring aid.  A lot of funds come in towards aid.  But it really will mean nothing if there is no security. 

You can‘t give all these children school bags and food and...

NORVILLE:  Yes. 

JOLIE:  Because the janjaweed will come in and beat them up and take it from them.  So security must happen first.  Security on every level must happen first. 

NORVILLE:  But where is the security going to come from?   The African Union has pledged to come in with 3,000 troops.  They‘ve got like 1,000 there, but this is a huge area. 

JOLIE:  And this is the African Union.  They don‘t have all the money and they don‘t have airplanes and tanks and lots and lots of troops.  They don‘t have what we would have in arm.  They don‘t have a lot.  They need a lot of support. 

I personally love the idea of, you know, the African Union really being strong, really being able to—Africa helping Africa and what that could mean for the future of Africa.

NORVILLE:  Sure.

JOLIE:  But we can‘t expect them to just miraculously become this great union that knows how to handle all the situation and can do it on its own without our logistical support.  We have to help them. 

So, I know the U.S. has been amazing.  I speak for my own country.  I know the U.S. has been amazing giving a lot of aid help, a lot of money to the U.N., a lot of money to many different areas to really give this the aid.  But we need to—I‘d like to see them focus more on helping to strengthen the A.U. or on any kind of logistics, whether it‘s airplanes or anything, just to get the security centered first. 

NORVILLE:  Well, one of the questions is who is going to do that?  And a lot of fingers point to the United Nations as the world body—you represent one aspect of it—as the one that ought to come in.

But there doesn‘t ever seem to be—even their meting earlier this month, they talk close to sanctions, but they don‘t get quite there, and some would argue that sanctions aren‘t the answer anyway. 

JOLIE:  Well, and I completely understand people. 

I think it took me a while understand.  I‘m still trying to understand the U.N. and my own government, everything.

(LAUGHTER)

JOLIE:  But I do know the thing that seems to be the most—the U.N.  is a body made up of different members.  And for it to make a decision to do something, all of the member states have to agree.  The U.N. doesn‘t work separately from those member states. 

NORVILLE:  Well, we‘ve seen how often that happens. 

JOLIE:  Well, yes.  So it‘s—there‘s a lot at play.

Also, the U.N. is not—they‘re a humanitarian agency.  We don‘t have an international criminal court yet, right?  So we have a humanitarian agency.  The humanitarian agency has peacekeepers, not peacemakers.  They‘re not an army.  They‘re not a military. 

NORVILLE:  But isn‘t that what security is all about, keeping the peace so that these people can live the lives?

JOLIE:  You keep it when it‘s there.  It‘s not there to keep.  There are gross human rights violations.  It is violent.  It is dangerous.  There are rapes and murders continuing and places being torched. 

U.N. absolutely can do more, will do more.  I know they‘re all, you know, working together to...

NORVILLE:  Right. 

JOLIE:  I‘m not saying it‘s perfect, but, in fact, they are not able to—you know, there are no guns in U.N. vehicles.  It‘s not what they do.  They‘re humanitarian.  And they should come in when an area is secured and do a lot.  But it must be secured first, and that really can‘t be asked of a humanitarian agency. 

(CROSSTALK)

NORVILLE:  We‘re going to take a short break.  We‘re going to come back, though, and talk more about the security and what you can do as an individual to make a difference. 

More with Angelina Jolie in just a moment. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORVILLE:  Angelina Jolie saw the heartbreaking aftermath of the killings in Darfur that the United States calls genocide.  More of her firsthand account next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAN PRONK, SPECIAL U.N. REPRESENTATIVE TO SUDAN:  The situation in Darfur may become unmanageable unless more efforts are made both at the negotiations table and on the ground. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NORVILLE:  There‘s the United Nations special envoy to Sudan with a dire prediction about the country‘s future. 

Back with actress Angelina Jolie, who has visited Darfur region of Sudan twice this year.  She is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations‘ high commissioner for refugees. 

Angelina, you follow this as well as anybody.  There was a cease-fire negotiated the beginning of November, around the 9th.  But the violence has gotten worse.  Why? 

JOLIE:  Well, because that‘s not enough, I suppose. 

I don‘t—I really don‘t have all the answers.  There‘s a lot in trying to figure out this.  There seems to be a lot that we don‘t understand that‘s going on.  There are a lot of politics involved, I think, in this situation.  I don‘t understand why the government‘s being allowed to—you know, why it hasn‘t been—it has not disarmed the janjaweed.  It has not held them accountable for what‘s going on.  I do believe they are working with the janjaweed. 

NORVILLE:  That the government is working with the janjaweed?  

JOLIE:  That the government was a part of supporting them. 

NORVILLE:  Yes. 

JOLIE:  When you talk to refugees and people that have crossed over borders, and they talk about helicopters following them, that‘s not nomadic people on camels.  That‘s the janjaweed. 

A helicopter is from something else.  It‘s from some other—that‘s too big.  That came from a government.  That came from something more.  There‘s a lot of stuff like that.  That says that there‘s something else going on.

(CROSSTALK)

NORVILLE:  The Security Council says it will take appropriate action.  We just heard John Pronk, the envoy to the Sudan, with all these dire predictions.  And the United States has called it genocide.  I keep thinking, 10 years ago, and everybody talked about Rwanda, and the world stood by and did nothing. 

JOLIE:  Absolutely.  Yes.  And then that was 100 days.  And this is 20 months. 

NORVILLE:  So what does it take? 

JOLIE:  So—I don‘t know. 

I know—I wish I had the answers.  I wish I could solve it.  I know that a lot of—that we should probably focus—something needs to very strongly happen.  So—and I‘m not somebody who is for—there‘s violence in this area and it must be met with force.  And I don‘t believe that should be—that‘s why I say we need to strengthen the African Union or else sooner or later we‘re going to have to come in on our own, and our own troops...

(CROSSTALK)

NORVILLE:  Let me get your reaction to John Danforth, who you know is

the United States representative to the United Nations.  And this is what

he said about the American position on Darfur.  He said: “It is going to be

inaction.  It is going to be condoning atrocities.  It‘s going to be the

failure to support the people of Sudan who are suffering terribly.  And the

message from the General Assembly of the United Nations is very simple—

quote -- ‘You may be suffering, but we can‘t be bothered.‘”

That‘s a horrible image for anyone to make about the United Nations. 

JOLIE:  That‘s—it‘s simply not true. 

The fact is, I‘ve been on the ground.  And I‘m not saying that the United Nations couldn‘t do more, but, like I said, they are not the political force.  They are not able to do as much.  They weren‘t able to stop Iraq. 

NORVILLE:  Right. 

JOLIE:  They aren‘t able to do as much as maybe they‘d even like to do. 

Can they take down and deal with the government of Sudan?  They have to be—unfortunately, you know, they‘re this body that, fortunately or unfortunately, they have to be kind of balanced in this way where they have to be allowed to work inside a country.

NORVILLE:  Yes. 

JOLIE:  They have to be allowed to get access to the people. 

When I‘ve been in the ground, I have seen—you can say what you want about the United Nations, but if they stopped working tomorrow, millions of people would be dead.  There are people in the ground, a lot of United Nations workers, risking their lives, working very closely with these NGOs, and doing everything that they can to help the people and the situation.  They do need a political solution, so they can properly do their work. 

(CROSSTALK)

NORVILLE:  Which is, I know, why you came in, why you went to the U.N.  a couple of years ago and said, hey, I want to do what I can, use my celebrity for something good, and try to play a constructive role in dealing with some of the world‘s problems. 

What is it you would like to see people take from your own example?  They obviously can‘t travel to Darfur and see what you‘ve seen, but they can live through your experience. 

JOLIE:  I think for all of us—I grew up, I thought, pretty well educated and pretty worldly, and I realized there was so much I didn‘t know about other countries and other peoples.  And we shouldn‘t just trust our headlines and just our news programs.  We need to really investigate and learn about the world around us and care.

And we need to raise our children to really care about children in Africa and children in Asia and their histories and their futures.  And I think, for everybody who wants to get involved, I think you should find the thing that calls to your heart.  Mine was refugees. 

NORVILLE:  Right. 

JOLIE:  I think to each his own, but you‘ll find something that matters to you and just to follow it and educate yourself.  And it‘s a duty to educate our children. 

NORVILLE:  I know you have your own little boy, who is, what, 3, 4 years old.  What do you tell him about mommy‘s work with the refugees?  How do you explain it to a child that small? 

JOLIE:  Well, he‘s Cambodian, my son.  So, his biological parents probably were refugees.  And his whole country very much lives that.  Still, they‘re all returnees, most of them.  So he will grown up around it. 

He has visited refugee camps.  He was recently on the Thai-Burma border.  So he just lives it.  He is getting to know them as he plays with their children.  And he know them as friends.  And he just sees—he‘s witnessing the world as it is, out of balance in a lot of—so I‘m not going to tell him.  I‘ll let him just learn for himself and watch. 

NORVILLE:  Well, keep up the good fight. 

Angelina Jolie, thank you very much for coming on to talk about this. 

We appreciate it. 

JOLIE:  Thank you so much.  Thank you. 

NORVILLE:  When we come back, we‘re going to switch gears dramatically. 

It‘s twins for Julia Roberts.  And this story is all in the names. 

Stay with us. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORVILLE:  Big celebrity baby news.

Julia Roberts, as you probably heard, gave birth to twins over the weekend.  And while, of course, we‘re very happy for her, we‘re also wondering a little bit about the names she chose for the kids, Phinnaeus Walter for the boy and Hazel Patricia for the little girl.  Well, it‘s not that unusual, because unusual names are all the rage these days for celebrity babies. 

Check out Gwyneth Paltrow‘s little daughter, Apple.  Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, their daughters, Rumor, Scout, and Tallulah Belle.  And John Travolta and Kelly Preston‘s son, Jet, might seem like a surprising name, until you learn that his parents have a jet plane parked right out in the front yard. 

But what is it with these unusual names?  And why are celebrities the ones that seem to be giving their to their kids?  

I‘m joined by two women who know a little bit about the whole name game.  Pamela Redmond Satran is the author of “Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana: What To Name Your Baby Now.”  And Strawberry Saroyan, author of “Girl Walks Into a Bar: A Memoir.”  She is uniquely qualified to talk about life with a special name.  Yes, her first name is Strawberry.

And we welcome you both to the program.

Pamela, let me ask you first, what‘s with these names?  Why would these be names, that Phinnaeus and Hazel would be popular? 

PAMELA REDMOND SATRAN, AUTHOR, “BEYOND JENNIFER & JASON”:  Well, in the new version of our book which just came out, we call Hazel a hot name.  It‘s an honest name.  And I think parents are looking for names with sort of an old-fashioned feeling that have a traditional value and kind of a classic sense to them and are unusual at the same time. 

NORVILLE:  But Phinnaeus?

Strawberry, what is That kid going to have to deal with, being Phinnaeus for the rest of his rMD-BO_natural life?  

(LAUGHTER)

STRAWBERRY SAROYAN, AUTHOR, “GIRL WALKS INTO A BAR: A MEMOIR”:  Well, I have a fairly high threshold for unusual names, so I think Phinnaeus, in my book, is not too unusual. 

But one of the things about having an unusual name, especially if you have a famous last name, is that it‘s nice to deflect a bit of the attention away from your parentage and on to your individuality, so... 

NORVILLE:  Our more literate viewers will know that your grandfather actually was William Saroyan, right, your paternal grandfather?

SAROYAN:  Correct.  Yes.   

NORVILLE:  So it kept away from the inevitable literary questions and gave you something else to talk about?  

SAROYAN:  Yes.  And it was also a nice counterpoint to the kind of hippy unusual Strawberry name, because it can be taken as quite a fluffy first name, but you have a nice kind of weight with the Saroyan part.  So Phinnaeus and Hazel will have the same advantage there. 

NORVILLE:  You won‘t have to say, what was it like to have a movie star for a mom?  Instead it will be... 

(CROSSTALK)

NORVILLE:  ... name like that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAROYAN:  Yes.  Exactly. 

NORVILLE:  I want to just give us a little perspective here.  I‘m going to run through some famous celebrities and their names and kind of ask the question, what were they thinking as these names were thought up?

First of all, David and Victoria Beckham.  They named their son Brooklyn.  Maybe they like the place.  Michael Jackson daughter, Paris, word is that she may have been conceived there.  And then there‘s Frank Zappa daughter Moon.  And we don‘t think that she was conceived there.  But Frank Zappa didn‘t stop there, because his son Dweezil has a name that kind of leaves you scratching your head, until you realize he‘s a music guy. 

And then there‘s David Bowie‘s son Zowie Bowie, or Zowie Bowie, as they say in England.  Richard Gere and Carey Lowell started out OK.  Their son is Homer James Jigme.  And then Bono‘s son, Elijah Bob. His name goes on.  It‘s Bob Patricius Guggi Q, which makes you wonder if there‘s no something going on in the music business.  Bob Geldof has three daughters. 

They are Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches, and Pixie

Pamela, tell me why this is normal behavior.

SATRAN:  I think choosing an unusual name is kind of like a competitive sport in Hollywood.  And names are free.  Anyone can have a good one. 

And so I think stars have to try harder to pick something really unusual and really special. 

NORVILLE:  But why is it so important that a name be special, be so unusual as to be a conversation starter? 

SATRAN:  I think that for stars themselves—think of Madonna, think of Oprah—I think those names really have come to signal a singular person.  And I think that that feeling carries over to choosing a singular name for your child. 

NORVILLE:  But I‘m guessing it can be a burden. 

Strawberry, what is Apple Martin, Gwyneth Paltrow‘s little girl and Chris Martin‘s little girl, going to have to deal with as time goes by? 

SAROYAN:  You know, it‘s interesting.

I think that one of the things that she has on her side is the fact that she is a Hollywood baby, and so that there are so many other kids that will have unusual names that she‘ll probably come into contact with.  I had a similar thing in the sense that I was born in 1970, and so there were a lot of other—the culture at that time—Moon Unit was born I think around the same time I was.

And so, obviously, there‘s a certain degree of teasing that will probably go on, but it‘s not actually quite as traumatic as one might expect, because I mean if someone who has a very unusual name—there was a little girl named Wonder where I grew up, and we would sort of tease her mercilessly, but she could tease me back.  So it‘s much more of a level playing field. 

NORVILLE:  So what you‘ve got to hope is that, no matter how weird your name is, that there‘s another kid down the street who has been saddled with an equally awful, difficult, weird first name?  

SAROYAN:  Well, I don‘t know if I would say awful and difficult and weird.  There is an upside to these names.  But, yes, it certainly is something that is nice if you have a fairly level playing field in certain milieus.  And Hollywood is one of them at the moment.

NORVILLE:  Pamela, is this something that‘s going to go mainstream?  Are we going to see more non-Hollywood people go for the avant-garde first names?  

SATRAN:  I think we‘re seeing it already.  There are a lot more names around and a lot more unusual names moving very quickly up the popularity ladder, as people imitate the stars and their star babies. 

NORVILLE:  Well, let‘s look at—we don‘t know what the popular names are for 2004.  But let‘s throw up the graphic and see what the popular names for boys in 2003 were.  Any of those with the girls, first off, strike you as particularly unusual?  

SATRAN:  Well, you see a lot of names on that list, Emma, for instance, Isabella, Olivia, that 10 years ago there were hardly any kids with those names.  And I think they‘re in kind of the same family as Hazel in that they‘re names that were popular 100 years ago. 

NORVILLE:  Like Abigail.

SATRAN:  Yes, Abigail.

NORVILLE:  And with the boys, Jacob, that‘s about as classic as you can get. 

SATRAN:  Yes. 

NORVILLE:  Joshua.

SATRAN:  But when I was a kid, there were no Aidans.  Until Aidan Quinn, I don‘t think anyone heard that Irish name.  Zachary, Tyler, those are names that were very unusual a very short time ago. 

NORVILLE:  And finally, Strawberry, do you have children yet? 

SAROYAN:  No, I don‘t. 

NORVILLE:  Have you thought at all about names at some point in time when you might become a mom?  Would you go the Strawberry route or would you be more of an Emily-Emma type of person? 

SAROYAN:  I think I would go somewhere in between.  I really don‘t think that, with a straight face, I could name my daughter Lisa.  I just—

I think it would be bizarre. 

But I think I tend to kind of like names that are something like a Stella for a girl or a Shane for a boy, something that‘s a little bit off the beaten path, but probably not a noun. 

NORVILLE:  There you go.  Oh, well, you have heard it here. 

Pamela Redmond Satran, thank you very much for being with us.

Strawberry Saroyan, thank you, too, for sharing your life story with us. 

We‘ll be right back. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORVILLE:  We like to hear from you, so send us your ideas and comments to us.  The address is NORVILLE@MSNBC.com.  We have posted some of your e-mails on our Web page at NORVILLE.MSNBC.com, which is also where you can sign up for our newsletter.

And that is our program for tonight.  Thank you very much for watching.  I‘m Deborah Norville.

Tomorrow night, the jury that found Scott Peterson guilty of murdering his wife and his unborn son will begin the penalty phase of the trial.  They will hear from Laci Peterson‘s loved ones.  What kind of impact will those family statements have on their decision?  We‘ll get into that when you join us tomorrow night. 

Coming up next, Joe Scarborough and “SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.” 

That‘s it for us.  Thanks for watching.  We‘ll see you tomorrow.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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